A core call center is often used to receive incoming calls. These calls may then be moved to out-sourced parties or other parties to handle the calls. More specifically, an automated, interactive voice response (IVR) system receives calls. The voice path and the data must be moved seamlessly to the third party that actually handles the call. Data may include customer account number, customer location information including customer site identifier, and service level information (i.e. types of services available in a calling area, services a caller uses, customer-specific information, etc.). Providing all the customer-specific data that is relevant to the call to the parties handling the calls enables a successful transfer of the data and the voice path. Accordingly, the customer can be handled efficiently and accurately, with no time wasted asking questions and looking up data that is previously known about that caller.
The voice path is forwarded with a key in a field, such as the Calling Line Identification (CLI) field. A mechanism is provided for counting calls and then sending a modified CLI with the call. Thus when a call arrives, a voice path and a key are provided to indicate that the data associated with the call may be found using a key to look up a designated record in a database. The database is a predefined database with the automatic number identification (ANI) providing the key. The ANI is used to identify the Directory Number (DN) of a calling subscriber, thus the ANI is used to obtain the data associated with the call.
Currently, the process is not performed efficiently. Several methods are used to provide the data to the other parties. For example, a trunk basis is used wherein the trunk that the call came in on is identified. For those skilled in the art, a trunk group is sent and it is identified as being on Channel 2. Computer telephony integration (CTI) information is exchanged between servers and communication nodes by means of CTI messages. For example, the CTI message may be used to identify the channel the truck number was on. Thus, this information allows the data and the call to be integrated. However, this method is very dependent on synchronization of both the trunks and the CTI messages so that the channel mapping enables integration of the data and the call. Nevertheless, the channel mapping would break down depending on volume. When time division multiplexing (TDM) was used, this method was acceptable because hard coded channels were used. When the switch to voice occurred, an algorithm was used to integrate the channel and the voice. However, the expected destination channel did not necessarily carry through to the other end as voice did not rely on a real cable extended from one place to another, but was implemented using data packets.
Accordingly, there is a need for assigning to a call a unique key associated with caller specific data for database retrieval.